WHOLE-BLOOD CULTURE FOR MEASURING MITOGEN-INDUCED T-CELL PROLIFERATION PROVIDES SUPERIOR CORRELATIONS WITH DISEASE STATE AND T-CELL PHENOTYPE IN ASYMPTOMATIC HIV-INFECTED SUBJECTS

Proliferative responses to a panel of mitogens were compared in parall el for two sources of cells, whole blood (WE) and conventionally prepa red peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC), obtained from asymptoma tic HIV seropositive and control subjects. Weak but statistically sign ificant correlations of the proliferative responses were observed. Use of either lymphocyte source produced significant differences in the p roliferative responses between the HIV seropositive and control subjec ts, but the use of WE was more powerful, with a smaller sample size be ing required to discriminate between the proliferative responses of th e two study groups. Furthermore, proliferative responses using WE gave strong and highly significant correlations with a number of important changes in the surface marker phenotype of the lymphocyte populations in the HIV seropositive subjects including CD4, CD8, CD4:CD8 ratio an d certain CD8 subsets, whereas strong correlations were not observed w ith the PBMC. The response of WE lymphocytes to staphylococcal enterot oxin B (SEB) was highly reproducible and provided the best discriminat ion between HIV-infected and control subjects. We conclude that the us e of WE for measuring lymphoproliferation is easy, rapid, accurate, an d discriminative for assessing and following the changes in immune fun ction which occur in HIV seropositive subjects, applicable in the clin ical as well as in the research setting.